“Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress: Working hard for something we love is called passion.” -Simon Sinek
If someone commanded you to work 13-hour days for a year, six days a week, with not enough resources or guidance and low pay you would probably tell them to take a hike. If they could somehow force you to do so, you would become bitter and your body would start to break down from the externally imposed burden and you will vastly underperform as you looked for anyway to shirk the responsibilities now crushing your soul.
Now take an almost identical situation but you choose to do it. You choose the problem to tackle and have agency to figure out how to deal with the lack of resources and plan. Instead of being chained to the desk for thirteen hours solid you get to work for a few hours in the morning in your pajamas then go workout then work another eight hours then take a break and then work some more, on your own schedule for the most part. You control or at least greatly influence the processes and your work environment, and you are doing all of this because you want to not because you have to.
The first scenario leads to stress. The second is eustress, the positive flip side to “distressed”, because you become energized from the effort instead of drained. The gym rat that loves to practice or the writer burning the midnight oil in a frenzy of creation. The entrepreneur or the researcher. There is a reason why those who create (authors, artists, musicians) can continue in their field for many decades of intense effort that would destroy others if it were not something that is in their very soul.
Passion is power, the unyielding drive that pushes people forward doing things they love. Find your passion and work loses its burdensome aspects and becomes not just an exchange of time for a paycheck but a reason to get up and live the day, an engagement of your very Being and an adventure to be experienced and embraced.
Choose passion and work becomes play and stress evaporates.